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I love Dr. Ricky Jones. He brings passion to everything he does in life. He’s black. I’m white. Neither one of us can totally grasp the other’s challenges but our pigmentation certainly affords me an advantage in life.

I can’t fully change the trajectory of anyone’s life; that’s up to every person walking this earth. The one thing I can do is listen. And I do.

And this, my friends, is the crux of our societal woes. Racists slinging epithets instead of listening. A majority of people of all colors won’t listen to anyone who doesn’t affirm their narrow views. Sad!

Comparing the University of Louisville to Vito Corleone’s money laundering Genco Olive Oil Company? Brilliant! That’s why I love Ricky. He brings a passionate, thoughtful, provocative, and often humorous approach to everything he does.

Here are a few of the emails I received during Ricky’s appearance today:

1) You just interviewed a raving lunatic.
So black is not good enough, they also have tobe liberals or it doesn’t count. Bleh. . .

2) Terry, those remarks Ricky made should not be aired. For him to proclaim that the Louisville University degrees to be worthless only a front for a money laundering’s scheme is preposterous and embarrassing. Then for him to say regarding Vince Tyra, “whatever in the hell his name is”. That is so unprofessional and wrong in so many ways. We know you have him on because he brings a different point of view but we feel as though his words and tone insights anger and hostility. His comments today were insulting to our entire city. Please refrain from having Ricky Jones on your show again.
Thanks, Moe

3) I’m curious as to why you give so much air time to Professor Ricky Jones. It would be interesting to hear from an African American man who looks at life and current events from a different perspective from his sometimes. Thanks for considering this.
Sent from my iPhone

4) You let Ricky Jones say that the stupid person who called your show and used the N word “is America”. I’m offended! I’ve never used that word and I AM AMERICA!!!! He continuously said he didn’t care what people think. Well, I don’t care what he thinks! I’m not giving my opinion because only I care about it. I wish he would keep his opinion private. I’m tuning out! Mary Hamilton

5) Terry, I wrote to you about John Yarmouth but today the interview with Ric Jones was highly offensive. U of L a money laundering opporation. You give this racist 50000 watts to spit out that garbage. I and my son are U of L grads and for the life of me I don’t know how this racist keeps his job. Can’t imagine what he does in the classroom. Thought you should know.

6) On Sep 5, 2017 5:53 PM, “John Fawbush”
Terry, I have listened to your show for years and rarely miss it because you do such a great/fair job on your interviews. That being said, the interview with John Yarmouth was over the top. So much that I will turn your show off anytime he is on in the future. He is the poster boy for left wing political views. Fairness be dammed. Don’t know how he keeps getting elected. I thought you should know.

7) Hi Terry…….
Hey, I was listening to your show today for a while as I was driving. I catch parts of it on most days and really enjoy it. I wanted to pass along a few compliments because I am sure, like everyone, you get all the critical stuff but none of the good.

• Today when you were interviewing a police officer (forgot his name)…..I noticed two things. You gently clarified his use of “gentleman” in terms of Australian culture protecting him from some crazy person just looking for a reason to complain when he clearly didn’t mean to compliment a murderer. Then when you asked him what could be an incendiary question about automatic rifles, you prefaced it with a positive about the second amendment. Now, I know this is your profession and it may not seem like a big deal to you….but my guess is that protecting your guests on the fly like that is not easy. I have heard you do the same for various other guests who, clearly, were not trying to say something rude or negative.

• As a white, conservative dad with a son born in Africa, I really appreciate how you handle race issues. It’s a tough thing for a guy in my position…you never know which side is right. But you span the range of having the “Urban Twelve Days of Christmas” (Hilarious, by the way) to having thoughtful interviews with African Americans in our community about various topics or issues of the day. That’s great because we all tend to take ourselves too seriously and I appreciate how you thread that needle.

• Lastly, I really appreciate the way you treat everyone on air. It is easy to see you care more about people than you do trying to be edgy or whatever. The way you handled the recent story with coach Pitino says something about your character. The facts….but not like many others who just trashed the man. I have never been a fan of his but it’s easy to trash someone in his position and pretend we have never made a mistake. You haven’t done that.
Anyway, as a transplant from Texas (Gig ’em Aggies!) I enjoy your show because it’s fun and I usually learn something about the Louisville area or the Commonwealth that I previously didn’t know.

Blessings to you and yours….
Steve
————-
(from Terry Meiners)
Thanks to all of you for writing. Steve is today’s winner!

Bill Stokes and Terry Meiners on Dr. Martin Luther King Day, 2010

As for my relationship with African Americans, here’s my blog post after hearing about the death of guy who expanded my brain and my life all in a riveting 2011 stage appearance. Enjoy.

We all walk a singular path with much commonality in the human experience. Embrace the differences. We are all on this earth together.

With a bullet in his neck this kid came back to save 30 white lives. And a white cop came back to save his. We all bleed red everyone. pic.twitter.com/GcnYqKUDMB

Director of the Fairness Campaign Chris Hartman followed up on his visit to the Kentucky Farm Bureau’s state fair ham breakfast. For the sixth consecutive year, Hartman protested what he says are discriminatory policies toward LGBTQ citizens that are advanced by lobbyists for KFB.

I completely love my 40 year broadcast career and have rarely regretted choosing it. I have learned 10 million things by talking with a zillion people on radio and TV. WHAS-TV’s Great Day Live and my WHAS radio show are valuable assets to local groups promoting important newsworthy fundraising efforts and social connectivity.

Great Day Live cast 2014 (top) and the original 2011 promo photo

With today’s ongoing battles to jump the minimum wage to $15 per hour, I thought you might enjoy this 1976 memo that kept me from being laid off only months after I’d started part-time production work at WKQQ/Lexington. (NOTE: the boss had poor math skills. I earned $40 per MONTH, not per week, and that totals $480 annually). Our “full-time” deejays were knocking down $3 per hour or $84 per week if they never took off a day. (federal minimum wage in 1976 was $2.30)

WKQQ program director pitched management on taking the radio station from automation to live deejays. His calculation for me, a college student, is misstated as “weekly” when he meant to type “monthly.” $40 x 12 months = $480

Now many of my contemporaries are leaving the business. Just this week, a group of WHAS-TV colleagues are rolling on to new dimensions. Each one of them has been a pillar of WHAS’ success and a vital part of my growth as a broadcaster. My radio company iHeartMedia also just restructured staff placement which left six cherished colleagues in search of new challenges. Each of them added positive value to my life and career. Broadcasting is certainly under siege, but by no means dead.

Tony Vanetti and Matt Jones are examples of thriving media personalities who earn well above the $35,000 – $48,000 average annual rate for most broadcasters.

Tony Vanetti, Terry Meiners, Matt Jones (November 2015)

They were both hilarious in the March 2016 charity roast featuring the best of the best in Louisville broadcasters. Each member of that roast cast is a high earner in broadcasting (and the lawyer and UofL department head are also well-paid).

Lots of people enter the broadcasting game but only a few are lucky enough to make a decent living. It’s a tough business that demands a love of the game with a secondary eye on monetary reward.

Local broadcasting will continue to deliver local information, and more importantly, local compassion.

Volunteers celebrate the closing of the 2015 WHAS Crusade for Children (photo: David R. Lutman, The Courier-Journal)

A 2009 blog post I wrote for a site compiling info on Lexington radio stations:

Terry Meiners, Lexington radio personality from 1977 thru 1980.

I was originally hired in 1976 to monitor the automation on the weekend overnight shifts. Eventually, WKQQ-FM “Double Q” went live and I was given a chance to go on the air when one of the original hires did not work out.

I am enclosing a photo of me (posted above) in the tiny WKQQ control room not long after it went live in early 1977. I am also enclosing a memo (also posted above) written by then program director Dick Hungate that laid out his proposed budget for taking the station from automation to live.

Notice that he saves my job because I am a part-time college student who makes minimum wage. Hungate’s actual calculation of my annual earnings is incorrect, but it still shows how cheaply a station could be run in that era.

WKQQ, which used the positioning phrase “Stereo Album Rock” at the time I was there, was a great launch pad for me. I started out doing late night, then evenings, then the morning show, then afternoon drive before tiring of it.

Terry Meiners is doused by Louisville firefighters in another fundraising Cold Water Challenge prior to the 2014 WHAS Crusade for Children.

I learned to use sound effects to make it seem as though I was cutting the station’s grass while the music played. I would tell the audience that the boss was making all of us do multiple jobs so that we just didn’t sit around and actually “listen to that garbage we play on our station.” So I’d use a sound effect of a starting lawnmower, then seque into “Stairway to Heaven” and as the song ended, I would fade up the sound of the lawnmower winding down. Then I would breathlessly backsell the record, make a snide comment about the cheap boss, and go to break.

My career was just taking off.

Alas, I hit a pay ceiling in 1980 and was told “that’s all there is.” I opted to go to Indianapolis and help my brother run a grocery store for about 3 months. I was miserable and missed being in broadcasting. Oddly enough, I didn’t miss being on the air, just being around the industry.

I called Louisa Henson at WLRS-FM in Louisville and begged for a job. As luck would have it, the promotions director job was available and I took it. My only request was that I not have to do airshifts any longer because I felt they led to a professional dead end.

Naturally, when one of the WLRS deejays would call in drunk, I was summoned to fill in for them. Then I was persuaded to take the afternoon drive slot in 1981. Not long thereafter, Dan Burgess left to go to WHAS Radio and left a vacancy for a co-host of the morning show with a kind but soured-on-life jaded hippie named Ron Clay.

Ron Clay & Terry Meiners mud wrestle “nuns” at The Toy Tiger (1983)

We formed the “Morning Sickness” show and it became a montrous hit for WLRS. It wasn’t long before arch rival WQMF came calling in December 1982. After a brief negotiation which jumped our salaries from $25,000 to $32,000, we jumped ship.

WLRS filed a lawsuit claiming “verbal agreements” were in place to extend work contracts for both announcers. The lawsuit was mostly dismissed by the judge, thus, Ron Clay and Terry Meiners were allowed to switch to WQMF with the stipulation that there’d be no transfer of the exact sketches or any other intellectual property from the WLRS show to WQMF.

It was the only time the word “intellectual” was ever used in conjunction with the careers of Ron Clay and/or Terry Meiners.

The judge also demanded that the duo not transfer the show’s name, so the new WQMF show was called “The Show With No Name.” The new show commenced in January 1983 and was a dominant player in Louisville radio until Terry Meiners left to take the afternoon drive slot at WHAS Radio in June 1985.

A six month non-competition clause with WQMF kept Terry off of the new station until “The Terry Meiners Show” debuted on December 2, 1985.

Terry Meiners & Rick Pitino on the WHAS-TV set of Pitino’s weekly coach’s show (2012)